Slovenia’s EMA semi-final and final to take place on February 17th and 24th?

Once again, EMA will be returning in 2018 to select Slovenia’s entry for the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in the Portuguese capital city of Lisbon. Now, media reports are suggesting that the final will take place on February 24th. In addition, a single semi-final will take place a week earlier, on February 17th.

Just one semi-final?

According to evrovizija.com, the 16 entries will all compete in a single semi-final on February 17th. This is a change from 2017, where two semi-finals of eight took place on consecutive nights. It is expected that the four most popular songs in the televote will then qualify for the final. Then, the four most popular songs amongst the jury that didn’t qualify via the televote will also qualify.
A combination of televoting and jury voting will then determine the winner of the final. Furthermore, the televoting points system is expected to be the same as last year, where BQL’s dominance in the televote was controversially reduced to just a 12 point advantage as a result of the preset points scoring system.
Many fans called for RTVSLO to take inspiration from Melodifestivalen’s percentage-based televoting points allocation system as the televoting result was overruled once again, an extremely common occurrence in the history of EMA.

Tonight was the 8th time Slovenia used a combined jury/televote points system in #ema and tonight was the 8th time the televote winner lost!

— ESCXTRA.com (@escxtra) February 24, 2017

Further reading: Slovenia: EMA 2017… how did we get here?

No live audience?

For EMA 2018, there will reportedly be no studio audience. Instead, the shows will move back to the RTVSLO television studios. In the semi-final, the songs must be performed in an official or minority language of Slovenia. It is then expected that the qualifiers will be allowed free choice of language for their performance in the final and onto Lisbon.
The sixteen participating artists in EMA 2018 include previous winners ManuElla and Tanja Ribič. Furthermore, EMA 2017 runners-up BQL will return to attempt to go one place better! Read the full line-up of participants here!

Are you excited for EMA 2018? Furthermore, do you like the changes RTVSLO have made for this year’s competition? Let us know in the comments below!